THE MILITARY AND SOCIETY IN HAITI

THE MILITARY AND SOCIETY IN HAITI

Also by Michel S. Laguerre AFRO-CARIBBEAN FOLK MEDICINE: The Reproduction and Practice of Healing AMERICAN ODYSSEY: Haitians in New York City THE COMPLETE HAITIANA: A Bibliographic Guide to the Scholarly Literature, 1900-1980 (2 vols) ETUDES SUR LE VODOU HAITIEN URBAN LIFE IN THE CARIBBEAN: A Study of a Haitian Urban Community *URBAN POVERTY IN THE CARIBBEAN: French Martinique as a Social Laboratory *VOODOO AND POLITICS IN HAITI VOODOO HERITAGE Also published by Macmillan

The Military and Society in Haiti Michel S. Laguerre University of California at Berkeley M MACMILLAN

MichelS. Laguerre 1993 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1993 All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made without written permission. No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 9HE. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. First published 1993 by THE MACMILLAN PRESS LTD Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 2XS and London Companies and representatives throughout the world ISBN 978-1-349-13048-1 ISBN 978-1-349-13046-7 ( ebook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-13046-7 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

In loving memory of the Haitian 'boat people' who died in high seas

Contents List of Maps and Tables x Introduction 1 1 Civil-Military Relations 11 Research methods 17 Overview of the chapters 18 2 The Army in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 23 The military as government 25 The nineteenth- and early twentieth-century army as a fragmented institution 39 Regional military leaders 47 Military intelligence 50 Military privileges 52 Military corruption 54 The military and voodoo 55 Civil society 57 Conclusion 59 3 The Haitian Army during the US Occupation 63 Political context 64 US motivations 65 The treaty 66 Administrative and geographic organization of the new army 69 The US occupation, the Haitian army and national politics 77 Civil society 80 Conclusion 82 4 The Army as Guardian and as Ruler, 1934-57 84 The guardian role: the military intervention of 1946 91 The guardian role: the military intervention of 1950 94 The guardian role: the military intervention of 1957 95 The 'Director' Role 98 Civil society 99 Civil-military relations and military intervention 101 Conclusion 102 Vll

Vlll Contents 5 The Army during the Duvalier Era: 1957-86 105 Administrative restructuring 107 Redefining the center of the army 110 Redefining the center of civil society 114 Relations between the Macoutes and the army 120 Civil society 122 6 The Haitian Military Intelligence System 125 The organizational structure of the intelligence system 128 The Duvalier innovation 135 Intelligence agents 137 The evaluation of military intelligence 139 Social implications 143 Civil-military relations 145 7 The Professional Soldier as a Parasitic Entrepreneur 148 Case 1: A sub-district in the north-eastern department 150 Case 2: A military district in the north-west 151 Case 3: The officer-owner of a multipurpose store 152 Exploitation of the military function for personal gain 153 Military corruption as a sui generis system 155 Corruption and ranking of army units 157 Civil society as victim 158 Civil-military relations 159 8 Coup d'etat: The Collapse of the Manigat Administration 162 Research methods 166 Socioeconomic and political factors 170 Clique and corporate interests 175 Foreign influences 177 From veto intervention to the coup d'etat 180 Precipitants and triggers 181 Execution of the Coup 183 Post-coup events as a window to pre-coup events 186 Layers of meanings 188 Conclusion 190 9 Conclusion 194 Patterns of civil-military relations 195 The predictive value of the equilibrium theory 199

Contents ix Glossary Bibliography Index 208 211 218

List of Maps and Tables Map 2.1 Haiti in the first half of the nineteenth century 24 6.1 Haiti, 1987 129 Table 2.1 Heads of the government of Haiti, 1804-1992 28 2.2 Geographic distribution of Haitian military divisions, 1805 41 2.3 Size of the Haitian army, 1805-80 44 X